RGSSALibraryCatalogue

Saturday, 21 March 2015

Discovering Asia: A New Way East - Across the Peaceful Ocean

A New Way East

Across The “Peaceful Ocean”

Continuing the "Discovering Asia" series; the exhibition opens at the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia in May.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century
only the Portuguese had a right to claim new lands of the East, according to a
treaty* ratified by the Pope. The Spaniards had the rights to the new lands of
the West, but as Columbus and those who came after him had found, these weren’t
the source of the much-prized spices. But what if they could go west, not east,
and reach the Spice Islands that way? No-one had ever done it before.

* Treaty of Tordesillas (1494, ratified by
the Pope, 1506) establishing a new “line of demarcation” which allotted the
Spanish most of the Americas except for Brazil, but all the new lands to the
east to the Portuguese

CROSSING
THE “PEACEFUL OCEAN”: MAGELLAN

Magellan’s voyage around Cape Horn and
across the Pacific resulted both from his disaffection with the Portuguese and
from the Spanish discontent with the treaty which effectively cut them off from
a share of the spice trade. Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães, as he is listed in modern catalogues) was a
Portuguese navigator, not Spanish, and so he had been to the East Indies—but
going east, taking Da Gama’s route around Africa and then across the Pacific. From
1506 he made several voyages to India, helping to wrest control of key Indian
trading ports from the Arabs. In 1509 he and his friend Francisco Serrão were
involved in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Malayan port of Malacca. Serrão
went on to the spice island of Ternate in the Moluccas in 1511-1512. It is
possible that Magellan went with him, though he was back in Portugal in 1512.

The King of Portugal having refused alike
his request for an increased allowance and his proposal of a voyage to the
Spice Islands, Captain Magellan renounced his Portuguese nationality and in
1517 offered his services to the King of Spain.

The
Circumnavigation of the Globe

Magellan is often credited with being the
first person to sail right around the world, but in fact he died in 1521 in the
Philippines, only halfway. The one remaining ship from the small fleet of five
he started out with in 1519 was the first European vessel to complete the
circumnavigation of the world. Nevertheless his achievements are very real.

On 21st October 1520
Magellan sailed into the passage to the Pacific Ocean that is now named after him, the Strait of Magellan. By this
time he had already survived a mutiny and the loss of one ship. It took 38 days
to navigate the treacherous strait: during the rough voyage one ship deserted
and returned to Spain. Sighting fires along the shore, Magellan named the place
Tierra del Fuego (“land of fire”). The journey round Cape Horn was 530
kilometres long. In November 1520 Magellan’s three remaining ships sailed into
the great westward ocean, which Magellan named Pacific (“peaceful”) because it
seemed so calm.

Heading first northwards along the western
coast of South America, they then turned west to cross the Pacific. Magellan’s
exact route is not known but it was to the north of the many scattered islands
of the South Pacific, missing several places where he could have found fresh
supplies. Desperately short of food and water,
with many of the crew dead from scurvy, they were reduced to eating
boiled leather, rats, and sawdust.

Landfall at Last: the
Marianas (“Ladrones”)

At last they reached land: Guam, in the
Mariana Islands. It was March 6, 1521.

In the Marianas pilfering incidents, very
possibly merely a cultural attempt to share possessions and not intended as
malicious, were seen by the Europeans as theft: Magellan called the islands the
“Ladrones” (“Thieves”) and took revenge.

Discovering the Philippines

Sailing westward, looking for the spice
islands of the Moluccas, but in fact far to the north of them, Magellan became
the first European to see the Philippines. He landed there on the island of
Cebu on April 7 1521.

He was killed during an attack on the
neighbouring island of Mactan, which he made in cooperation with the ruler of
Cebu. His men then burned one ship to stop it falling into enemy hands, and
escaped in the other two vessels. They reached the Moluccas on 6th November
1521.

Return to Spain

One ship, the Santa Maria de laVictoria,
under the command of Juan Sebastián de Elcano (or “del Cano”), sailed back to
Europe with a cargo of spices, crossing the Indian Ocean and rounding Africa by
way of the Cape of Good Hope. They reached Seville on September 9, 1522, thus
completing the circumnavigation of the world.

Spices, a
New Trading Empire, and a New World Map

The cargo of spices carried back to Spain
paid for the entire cost of the expedition. However, Magellan’s route round
Cape Horn via the Strait of Magellan
was too long and difficult to be a practical way to the Spice Islands, and
Spain sold her interests there to Portugal. But Magellan’s bold expedition laid
the foundations for trade across the Pacific between the New World of the
Americas and the East. Spain did not at first recognize the importance of the
Philippines, but by the end of the century Manila had become the greatest
Spanish trading centre in Asia.

Magellan’s voyage demonstrated incontrovertibly
that the world’s oceans were linked and finally abolished the belief dating
back to ancient Greek times that the Indian Ocean was landlocked. Cartographers
were at last able to estimate the true size and shape of South America, and the
full vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

Above:
The new map of the world:

A 1599
2-hemisphere map from the engraved title of part 8 of De Bry’s “Grands voyages”
, i.e. Americae pars VIIII (YG 2037)

“Mare
Pacificum” is in the centre, where the 2 hemispheres meet

Magellan: Early Texts from
an Eyewitness: Antonio Pigafetta

Antonio Pigafetta was an Italian nobleman
from Vicenza who sailed with Magellan in 1519. Little is known of his earlier
life. Pigafetta was wounded in the Philippines, but survived. Officially a
supernumerary, he acted as Magellan’s assistant and kept an accurate journal
which later helped in his translation of a Philippine language, Cebuano, the
first recorded document on this language. His account of the first
circumnavigation of the globe, Primo
viaggio intorno al globo terraqueo, is a seminal work used as the basis,
often unacknowledged, for subsequent accounts of the voyage.

Pigafetta’s
account of Magellan’s voyage appears in the collections of travel narratives of
both Ramusio and Purchas (see previous blog for full bibliographical details):

“F. Magalianes. The occasion
of his Voyage, and the particulars of the same, with the Compassing of the
World; gathered out of Ant. Pigafetta, who was in the said Circumnavigation,
also from divers other authors, 1519-22” (Vol. I, p. 33), In:

This is Pigafetta’s eyewitness account of
the circumnavigation of the globe undertaken by Magellan in 1519. The
manuscript used was probably a copy of one of the ones Pigafetta presented to
several illustrious persons of his time (preface, p.l [50]). It is a faithful
translation, including the author’s errors of fact, and with copious footnotes
by the editor. A set of maps is included, some taken from the MS, others
supplied by the editor. This is a vivid account, with many details of places,
peoples, food plants, spices, and animals and birds observed—Pigafetta was the
first to describe a penguin. Also included are an extract from his treatise on
navigation and his notes on the early German cartographer Martin Behaim’s extraordinary
globe, the “Erdapfel” (“earth apple).

After Magellan’s feat, other
expeditions under Spanish auspices would venture into the great ocean from the
Americas, most notably that of the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandes de
Queirós (d.1615), who features in Australian literature because of his claim to
have discovered the “great southern land”. In terms of the European discovery
of Asia his earlier voyage with Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira in 1595 is much more
significant. After reaching the Marquesas, Mendaña died. Queirós took command
and managed to reach the Philippines against strong odds, in February 1596,
“one of the greatest feats in the record of Pacific navigation.” (ADB).

Magellan’s voyage of course began European
contact with the Philippines. The RGSSA’s May exhibition, “Discovering Asia”,
will include books on the later contact between East and West in the
Philippines.

In the centuries immediately following
Magellan, however, the principal way to the East and its precious spices was to
be Da Gama’s way.